The Gamification of Work The Use of Games in the Workplace [Hardcover]

Despite the traditional opposition between play and work, games and their structure are increasingly used in workplaces. This phenomenon of using game elements or mechanisms in other contexts than games is named “gamification”. In workplaces, the gamification is supposed to abolish the separation between work and leisure or between constraint and pleasure. This book reviews a century of game theories in the social sciences and analyzes the uses of games in workplaces. We critically question the explicit functions (learning, experimentation…) which are supposed to be conveyed by games. Finally, we show that game, understood as a structure, could have efficient social functions in the workplace.

Introduction  ix

Chapter 1. Prelude: Fun, Play, Game, Ludus... A Survey of Game Theories 1

1.1. Animal play, human play 2

1.2. Theories of human play  6

1.2.1. Precursors 6

1.2.2. Differentiation between game structure and ludic attitude 14

1.3. Play as potential and intermediate space  16

1.3.1. Winnicott and play as “potential space” 16

1.3.2. Bateson and the question of “frame” 19

1.3.3. Goffman’s analysis of frame  21

1.4. The concept of play today  27

1.4.1. The current syntheses of a definition of play 27

1.4.2. Brougère’s characteristics of play 28

1.4.3. The link with learning  33

Chapter 2. Games in Business 35

2.1. Relations between games and work: an apparent incongruity  35

2.1.1. A variety of ways to address the relations between games and work in the social ló*